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Acknowledgments

This book grew out of a long-standing research interest of mine—namely, the presence of the Far East in contemporary French thought. The book wouldn’t have happened without Joseph Tanke’s recommendation, offered one fine evening in Honolulu, that I read François Jullien’s book In Praise of Blandness, which Joseph described as “one of the most beautiful books ever written in the French language.” He understood, before I did, the connections between that book and my critique of Western exceptionalism. I followed his recommendation and read In Praise of Blandness—and many more books by Jullien. I think it’s only fitting that this book ended up in the Global Aesthetic Research series that Joseph edits.

Olivia C. Harrison kindly picked up some Jullien books for me in Paris and discussed the introduction and chapter 1 of this book with me. I am also grateful for Olivia’s extensive written comments on chapter 1. Martin Woessner heard me out about chapter 3 and provided comments on an early version of chapter 2. He also commented on early versions of chapters 1 and 3.

During the 2018–2019 academic year, I was able to work closely with my graduate student research assistants Carl Schmitz and Clara Wenrong Lee on each of the book’s chapters, which helped push the book forward at a steady pace. Some of the work I did with my graduate student Rose Sheela on critical surf studies also resonates in this book’s third and fourth chapters. I am grateful to the provost’s office at the California Institute of the Arts and its Research and Practice Fellowship Program that helped support that work.

A version of chapter 2 was originally published as “François Jullien’s Unexceptional Thought” in boundary 2 47 (1) (2020): 1–42 (republished by permission) and benefited from the peer review that I received as part of that process. Some of my early thoughts on Jullien ended up in Against Aesthetic Exceptionalism (2019), and writing that short book contributed significantly to the work that ultimately ended up in this volume.

In an interview, François Jullien resists the notion that because one writes a lot the work must by necessity be of poor quality. I hope my work, too, can contribute to that resistance.